Thursday, April 02, 2015

Pretty Marvelous March

March has been a good month. I've stayed put in SLC in anticipation of lots of travel in April, and I've been enjoying good friends and mostly good weather. I'd say I'm quite content. Life is good.

I came back from LA to a lovely snowstorm here. It didn't snow long, but it snowed hard. On days like this I'd usually work from home, but I had to present at a big meeting with a partner and a senior VP from NYC was in town hosting a townhall in person. I needed to be in the office, so off I went.

Several of the Young Women who are in my ward where in their middle school musical, so many of us went to watch. I felt a bit of pride as they performed Oklahoma. But I'd forgotten some of those plots lines - are they really okay for middle schoolers?

If I work out, that means I can eat burgers and donuts after, right? I finally tried Beyond Glaze. That blueberry one was a winner. The s'mores one was okay.

Jendar teaches yoga at the U in a beautiful new building, and I tagged along to her Friday evening class. It was really great. I'm hoping to do that more often.

One Saturday was Salt Flats day! Meghan, Celisse and I had never been, so we figured we'd cross one off the ole Utah bucket list. We also thought we'd get to a lot of other things that day, too. We didn't really look up how far away they were so....yeah, two hours later, we arrived. But we had some fun stops along the way and didn't mind skipping the rest of our plans.

We really didn't plan well. Why didn't I wear boots? Seriously - so little planning. We capped off our road trip with a drive through Wendover (buffet dinner, anyone?), a trip to the Overstock warehouse as we got back into town, and then a visit to The Press for some pie.

There's a new midsingles ward in town, and I went to try it out. Turns out I know a couple stellar people in it, and it actually felt like church and not a meat market! Awesome. I'm definitely not in the boundaries, but I think I shall visit from time to time.

One March Monday I ended up with two dinner dates in one night. Another reason to workout, if I'm going to eat twice for one meal. Dinner one was a Tinder date. Dinner two was at Takashi with a work friend who was in town from NYC. She also went to Georgetown undergrad, so we've got a bit of a bond.

Later that week I bought myself an iPad with the gift cards I earned for that year end work project. I've thought about getting one for awhile, and I got a good deal. Hooray iPad mini! I do love it.

I had March documentary night and had a good crowd. We watched The Iran Job, which I thought was excellent. It's the story of an American pro basketball player who signs a contract to go play in the Iran Superleague for a year. Fascinating stuff. Meghan came up from Provo for it and stayed the night, since she was on a panel early the next morning at the Adobe Summit.

Since she had a conference badge, she stayed all day, then managed to grab a badge from her MBA friend, which I then used to get into the private Imagine Dragons concert that night. Tons of free food and cool stuff everywhere! I should conference crash more often. They had a sweet set up downtown.

One Saturday I went with Jendar to the Vintage Whites market at the SLC Fairgrounds. I'm not super into vintage stuff, but I thought it'd be fun to check out. I did end up buying a cute card to send to a friend and a tote bag. It seemed like this market was the talk of all those Utah bloggers.

This hot chocolate from The Duchess stand was worth the visit! Find it in the Provo area when you can - so good! And run by Brits, served with biscuits. It's really, really good stuff.

Later that Saturday, Taylor and Hallie came up to visit. We went to see the ducks at Liberty Park, then grabbed some BBQ after.

And even more fun that day, it was Pi Day!! Of course I went back to The Press, and took Cher with me since she was in town and staying with me. The line was insane.

After eating, I rushed home so I could start? or finish writing my talk that I would be giving in church the next day. 9am sacrament meeting isn't very forgiving, and with only one other speaker, I'd have time to fill. Thankfully all went very well, and the bishopric jokingly said they'd like to have me speak every week. Turns out I'd speak again two weeks later, since all the YW were asked to do the sacrament meeting program and talk about Easter. At least that time I only had to speak for a few minutes about Palm Sunday. Easy enough.

Celisse and I had tried to go sugar free for Lent (her idea), but when she invited me over one tonight for The Tonight Dough, I knew Lent was over for good. At least we did a long walk before eating!

Spring showed up!

And March Madness showed up! Georgetown's first game was on TruTV (what? Google Trend alert) which I definitely don't have, so I called Adam to borrow his bachelor pad's all sports station hook up. He and Dana just got engaged, so we got to catch up before the game and order some Indian food.

I'm glad Georgetown broke the first round curse and made it to round two, but the fact that we were then up against the Utes? That was crazy. I still wore my Hoya gear in this red country, and thankfully work was airing the first round games on big screens in the cafeteria, so I got to watch a lot of other teams as well. My bracket though? Totally destroyed.

I finally used my Christmas gift card at Crate and got some new kitchen stuff. I like new kitchen stuff.

We had a team potluck at work and went healthy for St Patrick's Day. Lots of green.

Jendar planned a girls night out at Current, which just opened in SLC. It's in a beautiful old building and the food is excellent. I wore my sparkly shoes in anticipation.

We ordered so much. I had potato dumplings with curry raisins to start.

Then scallops! So good.

That chocolate pudding was something else.

And this honey pie was excellent.

We finished the night at Jendar's place with tea and macarons. I'm glad to know such great ladies.

Taylor and Courtney came up again another Saturday so we could use my Red Butte Garden membership. The weather was so nice, and I was eager to visit. We grabbed lunch outside at Barbacoa before, where I learned that Hallie has learned how to say 'taco.' She pointed at my food and said it, as the lady was wrapping up my tacos. She also got really excited when a dog passed and kept saying 'hi, puppy!' over and over. Adorable.

Hallie mostly played in the dirt.

Sergio came over Sunday night and we Facetime'd with Marcello. I always wonder why I don't use that technology more often? We had some good laughs.

My custom shirt for Angelle's wedding arrived in the mail. I leave in a week!

Geographer came to town, so I headed to Urban to see them. Except why they gotta come on stage at 11:25pm on a Tuesday? I gotta work the next day! Wild Ones opened, and I really enjoyed them too.

International Waffle Day! It was BOGO, so Celisse and I made the trek and waited in line forever. It was her first time, but she deemed them worth the wait.

Ha - remember this? Everyone played it, and Marcello reminded me that I was a struggle with this blast from the past photo...

I got a seat at the table for the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce banquet at the Grand America, thanks to a good work friend in public affairs. I don't exactly have anything black tie in my closet, but I managed to get myself pulled together and not look like riff raff, as we'd joked earlier with the most senior guy in my office. It was a good event, nice dinner, good presentation, and I was surpised to see Elder Ballard give one of the speeches. Audra McDonald also sang some tunes for us, and I even ran into someone I know. Starting to feel connected here.

Later that night I went back to Urban Lounge for Public Service Broadcasting. So cool.

Nathan and I decided to take a field trip to Provo on Saturday so we could visit our LA friend Melissa who now lives in LA. Since we all left California she's gotten married, taken on three kids, sold her place in LA, got pregnant and settled in Utah. We had a great reunion.

While in Provo, Taylor and Hallie came and met us for lunch at Gallo Giro.

Of course I had to get Your Mom at Sodalicious.

Nathan and I walked around Provo and we stumbled upon Taste, which I'd heard about. I now have reservations for a chocolate tasting! We also went to an antique store where Nathan indulged in his love of taxidermy. He came home with a fish to mount on his wall. I wanted him to get the badger.

The Provo temple is coming along! I mean, the other Provo temple.

A cookie I made at Melissa's with the kids.

I rushed back to SLC from Provo so I could meet Celisse for Women's Conference. We didn't have tickets so we were going to try for standby, but I was running late and it didn't look good. Nathan dropped me off and drove my car home, and sometime in there Celisse found a woman with extra tickets who gave us two. We were in! And then we strategically sat in the back row on the end, and with the last amen we were out the door before everyone else.

We went back to my house and walked over to Trio, where Meghan and Britney met us thirty minutes later, after they got out of the conference center and parking garage.

I had a great Sunday dinner at Tara's house, after having a great lunch with her on Friday (yay for more work area friends and lunch dates), then we got our power walk on around Sugar House Park. We had some of her amazing brown butter chocolate chip cookies waiting for us after. I've gotta start browning my butter!